ASRock X58 Extreme6 Motherboard
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The north bridge of the Intel X58 chipset provides 36 PCI Express x1 lanes, while the south bridge (ICH10R) provides six more lanes. Because this motherboard has six SATA-600 and six USB 3.0 ports, the manufacturer added a PLX PEX8608 switch chip to add eight PCI Express 2.0 lanes, allowing all ports to be used at the same time without performance drop. On motherboards with lots of SATA-600 and USB 3.0 ports that don’t have a chip like this, performance may drop when all ports are used at the same time.
The first PCI Express x16 slot (PCIE1) always work at x16 speed. The second PCI Express x16 slot (PCIE4) works at x16 when only two video cards are installed in the system, or at x8 when three video cards are installed. The third PCI Express x16 slot (PCIE5) always work at x8. This is a high-end configuration, as usually on X58-based motherboards the third PCI Express x16 slot works at x4 speed.
The first and the second PCI Express x16 slots are placed with two slots between them. This means that you can install a video card that occupies two or even three slots in the first PCI Express x16 slot and you will still be able to use the second PCI Express x16 slot (of course in this case you “kill” one or the two PCI Express x1 slots). The same goes for the distance between the second and the third PCI Express x16 slots: you can install a video card that uses two or even three slots in the second slot and you will still be able to use the third PCI Express x16 slot (of course in this case you “kill” one or the two standard PCI slots).
If you want to install a dual-slot video card in the third PCI Express x16 slot, you will need to have a case with at least eight expansion slots (cases usually have seven).
The PCI Express x16 slots support both CrossFireX and SLI.
As can be inferred from the above explanations, there are two PCI Express x1 slots between the first and second PCI Express x16 slots, and two standard PCI slots between the second and third PCI Express x16 slots.
A peripheral power connector must be installed on the motherboard in order to provide extra current to the PCI Express x16 slots.
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